Chapter 21
Twenty-One
BAILEY
Mom and Dad burst through the emergency room doors in a tsunami of Christmas cookies and frantic energy.
Mom’s Santa earrings flash like warning beacons with every jerk of her head, and Dad’s clutching his Tupperware, wearing that ridiculous reindeer sweater with the nose that blinks in accusatory red.
Behind them, Gabriel ducks through the doorway, his six-foot-four frame making everything in the hospital room look miniature.
They stick out in this antiseptic space like snowmen in a desert.
“Bailey!” Mom launches herself at me, somehow crushing my ribs while avoiding my leg. Her vanilla perfume—the same one she’s worn since I was six—floods my senses. “We thought we’d lost you!”
Dad hovers at the edge, his calloused fingers tight around the plastic container, knuckles white. “Brought your favorites. The mint chip ones.”
“Thanks, Dad.” My voice catches—thin and brittle, belonging to someone else.
Gabe stands at the foot of my bed, his usual older-brother stoicism cracking around the edges. “You look like hell,” he says, but his voice wavers.
“You should see the other guy,” I attempt a smile. “Or rather, the other wolves.”
“The airline called us,” Mom says, straightening my already straight blanket. “Said your plane went down. They notified us again just before we got your text, saying that you had been rescued and they were flying you here.”
“Did you know Mr. Lockhart sent a private jet for us?” Dad’s eyes shine with a childlike wonder that breaks my heart. “A jet, Bailey. For us.”
Mom nods, patting my hand. “That young man arranged everything. They had those little hot towels that smell like lemons.”
“Said he felt responsible.” Dad places the container on my bedside table with reverence. “Got you the best doctors in the state.”
Of course he did. Perfect Sebastian with his perfect solutions for the imperfect pilot who crashed his plane and his heart.
The universe really needs better hobbies.
Gabe's eyes narrow. "This Lockhart guy. He still around?"
“Yes, is he still here? We wanted to thank him.” Mom’s already scanning the space like Sebastian might materialize from behind the IV stand.
“He’s—” My throat closes, the truth lodged somewhere between my heart and my mouth, impossible to dislodge.
How do I tell them Sebastian’s busy playing the perfect son with his perfect family and the perfect fiancée who cheated but still gets to stand by him?
How do I explain that my parents’ light-up earrings and blinking sweaters would be cataloged and dismissed by the Lockharts before they finished their first handshake?
How do I admit that the man who gathered pinecones for Christmas, who fought wolves with a branch, who touched me like I might shatter—that man vanished the moment civilization reclaimed him?
Mom buzzes around my bed like a Christmas-themed hummingbird on espresso, fluffing pillows and arranging cookies in a perfect spiral on the napkin she pulled from nowhere while I relay the story of our harrowing experiences, leaving out all the parts too painful to admit.
“You need more water,” she declares, snatching up the plastic pitcher. “And another blanket. You always run cold when you’re hurt. Remember third grade? Three blankets and you still shivered.”
“I’m fine, Mom,” I lie.
She’s already flagging down a nurse with surprising authority for a woman barely five feet tall.
Gabe moves closer, lowering his voice. "So this Lockhart guy fought off wolves for you, huh?
" His expression is carefully neutral, but I know that look—it's the same one he wore when I came home crying about Billy Peterson in sixth grade, right before he coincidentally decided to teach Billy's brother some new wrestling moves.
"It wasn't like that, Gabe," I say, though it was exactly like that, plus so much more. "Just two people trying to survive."
"Uh-huh," he says, unconvinced.
My phone vibrates against my hip. Cora’s face fills the screen—her perfect smile captured mid-laugh at her birthday last year.
“Bailey!” Her voice crackles with panic. “Are you okay? I’ve been calling for days!”
“Still breathing. Leg’s busted, but it’ll heal.” I press the phone harder against my ear, as if I could pull her through it.
“I’m so sorry I can’t be there. We’re stuck in Paris—earliest flight is tomorrow.”
“It’s fine. You don’t need to worry.” What else can I say? That I wish it were her here instead of my parents because she’d understand without explanations? That she’d see the Sebastian-shaped hole in my chest without me having to point it out?
“If you need anything—anything—just say the word. Better room, specialists, whatever it takes.”
I want Sebastian. But even you can’t help me with that.
My eyes burn. Everyone is trying to fix everything when the only broken part that matters can’t be set in a cast.
“I’m good,” I choke out. “Really. Don’t—”
A shadow falls across my bed. I look up, and time stops.
Sebastian.
I hang up on Cora mid-sentence, our eyes locking across the sterile hospital air.
“Mr. Lockhart!” Mom’s earrings go into strobe mode as she teleports to his side. “We can’t thank you enough for saving our daughter.”
Sebastian shifts his weight, his gaze ping-ponging between my mother’s flashing jewelry and my face. “Mrs. Monroe, please, she saved me.”
Dad ambushes him from the other side, thrusting the Tupperware at Sebastian’s chest. “Cookies. Bailey’s favorite since she was in pigtails.”
Sebastian accepts the container. “Thank you, Sir.”
“Sir? Ha!” Dad claps Sebastian’s shoulder hard enough to wrinkle Italian wool. “Call me Joe. Any man who fights off wolves with my daughter gets to drop the formalities.”
Mom’s already arranging cookies on a fresh napkin. “You must try one. Family recipe. Bailey would steal the dough by the spoonful when she thought I wasn’t looking.”
The perfect mask slips as Sebastian bites into a cookie. A genuine smile tugs at his mouth, the one I’ve only seen by firelight. “These are incredible, Mrs. Monroe.”
“Samantha, please! And take more for your trip home. You’re nothing but sharp angles in that suit.” She stuffs cookies into his hands like he’s a starving child.
I want to disintegrate into the hospital sheets because he’s looking at me over my mother’s Santa-earringed head with something that cracks my ribcage open. Longing or regret or both.
“Your daughter is extraordinary,” he says, and my pulse stumbles. “The way she handled the crash... I wouldn’t be here without her.”
Mom beams like she personally taught me to fly planes. “Our Bailey’s always been special.”
“Yes,” Sebastian says. “She is.”
For a heartbeat, he’s back—my Sebastian, the man who whispered I wasn’t too much as snow piled against our cabin window. The one who understood.
“There you are.”
Reality crashes back with the voice from the doorway. Rebecca stands framed in the entrance, diamonds dripping from her ears, radiating perfection. Her gaze sweeps over me like I’m part of the hospital furniture before landing on Sebastian.
The cookie crumbles in his grip.
His mask slides back into place so fast I almost miss it. “I apologize, but I need to go.” His voice hardens into something corporate and distant. “The jet is waiting.”
His eyes find mine for a fragment of a second, and I see it—everything he can’t say with Rebecca hovering in the doorway like a designer vulture.
“Of course,” Mom chirps, oblivious to the tension crackling between us like a downed power line. “You must be eager to get home.”
Dad nods. “Don’t let us keep you. And thanks again for everything you did for our girl.”
Gabriel stands slightly apart, arms crossed, eyes tracking between Sebastian and me with uncomfortable perception. His posture radiates protective older brother energy, the same stance he's had since we were kids, and he appointed himself my personal guardian.
Sebastian hesitates, broken cookie still in his hand. “Bailey, I—”
“Better hurry,” I cut him off, the words like glass in my throat. “Wouldn’t want to keep your fiancée waiting.”
His jaw tightens at “fiancée”—the muscle jumping once, twice. “Right. Well...” He turns to my parents. “It was lovely meeting you all.”
Rebecca makes an impatient sound, checking her watch—probably some Swiss timepiece that costs more than my salary. Sebastian tugs at his already perfect tie and turns to follow her.
Just like that, he’s gone. Walking away with the woman who shattered his heart, back to his perfect life where people like me—people who collect tacky snow globes and ramble about penguin mating habits—don’t belong.
The door to the emergency room whispers shut behind them.
My chest feels hollowed out, like someone scooped everything vital away with a melon baller and left just enough behind to keep me technically alive.
“He seems nice,” Dad says, oblivious to the emotional massacre he just witnessed.
Mom watches me with that look. The one she had when I was seven and came home crying because the other kids said my dinosaur facts were weird. She perches on the edge of my bed, her hand finding mine.
“Bailey,” she whispers, my name carrying a universe of questions.
I focus on her flashing earrings. Blink. Blink. Blink. Easier than meeting her eyes.
“He’s just the guy I was flying,” I manage, my voice sandpaper-rough. “Nothing special.”
Mom says nothing, just squeezes my hand. The knowledge in her eyes cuts deeper than if she’d called me out on the lie.
“You’re good to go, Miss Monroe.” A nurse wheels in a hospital-issued wheelchair, its gray vinyl cracked with age. “The doctor signed your discharge papers.”
Dad gathers my duffel, which Mom packed with fresh clothes and enough supplies for a three-month Arctic expedition. “Your apartment’s ready. We stocked the fridge and cleaned.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” I try for grateful instead of suffocated.
“Of course we did.” Mom fusses with my hoodie collar. “That’s what parents are for.”
I slide from bed to wheelchair, swallowing a hiss as my leg protests. The nurse helps arrange my cast so it juts out like a white battering ram.
“Stylish ride.” I pat the armrests. “Think they’d let me add flame decals?”
Mom rolls her eyes, but Dad chuckles. “That’s my girl.”
The nurse pushes me toward the elevator, my parents trailing behind with my meager belongings. I clutch my backpack in my lap—the only thing that survived the crash besides me and a handful of regrets.
The elevator doors slide open to the hospital lobby, and sound slams into me like turbulence.
Flashing cameras. Shouting voices. A crush of reporters packed together like psychological sardines.
“Mr. Lockhart! How did it feel to crash in the wilderness?”
“Sebastian! Over here!”
“Is it true you fought off wolves with your bare hands?”
“Rebecca! Were you worried when you heard the news?”
There he is, at the eye of the media hurricane. Sebastian Lockhart, billionaire and wilderness survivor. Rebecca clings to his arm like a designer barnacle, diamonds winking under the camera flashes.
“After our emergency landing,” Sebastian’s saying, his voice carrying that polished, media-trained quality I never heard in our cabin, “we had to hike through treacherous conditions to find shelter.”
The reporters swallow his words whole, scribbling notes and thrusting microphones closer.
Rebecca leans into him, her practiced smile never faltering. “I never doubted he’d make it. Sebastian has always been exceptional.”
The nurse pushes my wheelchair forward, and we skirt the edge of the circus. Not a single camera turns our way. Not one reporter notices the actual pilot who landed the plane. I’m invisible—just another patient being discharged, not worth a second glance.
“Should we wait until they’re done?” Mom whispers. “The exit’s right behind them.”
“No.” My voice cracks like thin ice. “Let’s go.”
The nurse navigates around the crowd. We’re almost at the doors when I hear it.
“And what about the pilot?” A lone voice rises from the back of the pack.
I freeze, fingers digging into the wheelchair armrests.
Sebastian clears his throat. “The pilot showed remarkable skill during the emergency. Without her quick thinking and expertise, the outcome would have been very different.”
The reporter pushes. “Is she here? Can we get her statement?”
“I believe she’s been discharged,” Sebastian says. “And I’m sure she’d appreciate privacy during her recovery.”
The reporters lose interest, turning back to the more glamorous story of the billionaire CEO who survived nature’s fury with his perfect fiancée waiting faithfully at home.
“Such a shame,” Mom mutters as we push through the exit doors into the biting winter air. “You’re the actual hero.”
“Vultures,” Gabriel mutters beside me, his tall frame shielding me from the winter wind as he walks alongside my wheelchair. “They only care about the story that sells, not the truth.”
I shrug. “I’m the one who crashed the plane.”
“After the engine failed,” Dad reminds me. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“And you fought off wolves,” Gabe adds. “With a snow globe. That's badass, Bay.”
Despite everything, a small smile tugs at my lips. Having my brother's unwavering support has always been my safety net, even when I'm plummeting from thirty thousand feet.
Outside, my parents’ rented minivan waits at the curb, Dad having gone ahead to bring it around. The nurse helps me from the wheelchair to the backseat, where I can stretch my leg out.
“Ready to go home, kiddo?” Dad asks, sliding into the driver’s seat.
I tear my eyes away from the scene inside, from Sebastian’s straight spine and Rebecca’s manicured hand and the life I never could have been part of.
“Yeah,” I whisper, the lie bitter on my tongue. “Let’s go home.”